Book Review: Alien Stars by David Hambling
HARRY STUBBS is back and fighting the Great Od Ones again! The adventures of a early 20th century London boxer and amateur detective remain one of my favorite Cthulhu spin-offs. It's a series of well-researched detective stories which are more interested in the occult secret societies, weird history of London, and cultists versus the actual supernatural weirdness so many other stories deal with. In simple terms, it's more The Ninth Gate versus Friday the Thirteenth in how it compares to most stories.
ALIEN STARS opens with Harry having lost his job with legitimate firms and having been reduced to doing criminal work with a corrupt partner. They now serve as thieves and black marketeers who acquire antiques with occult significance then sell them to their patrons. It's a big shift for the normally honest and forthright Harry so I found this change a bit jarring. This time, his latest job results in a death of a young woman who is involved in a conspiracy to deal with an unnatural plague that can destroy the world.
So maybe it worked out.
Alien Stars isn't quite as enjoyable as the other two volumes of the series due to the fact Harry doesn't quite work as a professional criminal, and I felt the more "aware" cultists helping him investigate the occult was less interesting than the protagonist stumbling around on his own. On the plus side, I liked the larger role of women in the story. There's more in this book and they play a more central role than usual. I also appreciate all the references to the Colour of Outer Space, which is my favorite of HPL's work.
Despite this, I still appreciated Harry Stubbs as a character. He’s the kind of opposite of typical Lovecraftian protagonists. He’s neither especially enamored of the supernatural nor easily horrified. He’s a working-class protagonist who wants to be able to move to the middle class as the object of his desires as opposed to unraveling the secrets of the universe. It gives him an everyman relatability that a lot of them lack.
David Hambling has a masterful skill at making his 1920s version of London come alive. It is not the same sort of London that is depicted via the lens of Lovecraft but a more down to Earth, cosmopolitan place that is at the tail end of the British Empire. He manages to use period appropriate pop culture and occultism to make Lovecraft’s ideas feel more grounded while also feeling forced.
In conclusion, Alien Stars is a pretty solid entry into the Harry Stubbs series. We get a few more insights into the way Harry’s life has changed since his discovery of the supernatural as well as character development. At the end of the day, Harry is more interested in making pounds than he is fighting the supernatural and that is something I suspect we can all relate to, I think. After all, hunting Cthulhu cultists doesn’t pay the bills.
